


The Moth and the Dark

by emungere



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Obsession, Possessive Behavior, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-02-27 05:24:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2680670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of them has to bend. Hannibal decides it should be him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to louiselux for the beta! <3

They sat in their respective chairs. Will mirrored Hannibal’s body language, unconsciously at first, and then with purpose. He matched himself to the glacial calm he saw in front of him and hoped it would freeze him solid and still.

Hannibal stopped, mid-sentence, to consider him. “Are you here with me, Will?” 

“I’m here.”

“And where are your thoughts?” 

“Farther away,” Will admitted. He paused. “I saw you yesterday.”

Hannibal cocked his head very slightly to one side. “I don’t believe I saw you.”

“You were distracted. You were with someone.” 

“Ah. I remember, yes.” 

“People don’t touch you,” Will said. “Most people.” He could still see the man, his hand on Hannibal’s arm, his broad smile. 

“Most people don’t touch you either.” Hannibal pressed his lips together, and his tongue poked out like a snake tasting the air. “I met him at the opera.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations.”

“I have given you many things I don’t owe you. If you want this, you only need to ask.”

Will shifted in his chair. The touch, the smile, the brush of their fingers. It all sat like an itch at the back of his skull. “Who is he?”

“His name is Morgan. He has come to dinner at my house twice now. The second time, we slept together. He didn’t spend the night.”

Will could feel Hannibal watching him, poised and almost predatory. “It’s none of my business,” Will said. 

“You are my friend. If I have upset you, I’d like to know how.” 

“You haven’t. It’s not a problem.”

“What did you think when you saw me with him?” 

Will rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “We should talk about something else.” 

“Why? Would I find the answer shocking?” 

Will looked down at the carpet between his spread legs. Something had to shock Hannibal eventually. Maybe this would be it. “I thought he should stop touching you.”

“Had you any thought of taking his place?”

“No.” 

“Then you see me as your property rather than a potential romantic partner.” 

Will winced. “It’s not like that.” 

“I would prefer it if you didn’t lie to me, Will.” 

“I’m not lying. I told you it wasn’t my business. I’m not _proud_ of it. Jesus. Can we drop this now?” 

“I’d prefer to explore it. I’m intrigued.”

“Not concerned?” 

“Why would I be concerned?”

“One of your patients just confessed to obsessive thoughts in connection with you and your…boyfriend.”

“Are they obsessive?” 

“I couldn’t sleep last night. I dreamed about it. You.” 

“Have you dreamed of me before?” 

“Yes. But not like this.” 

“What were they like, the earlier dreams?”

“You were walking through a ruined house. It’s always the same house. Sometimes I’m with you and sometimes not. You’re looking for someone.”

Hannibal paused. “And this one?” 

“Just a mess. Everything out of place. Images thrown together. His shoes. His—” He stopped and edited out the word _stupid_. “His tie.” 

“No element of searching? Had I found what I was looking for?” 

“No. It was a different paradigm. You weren’t even really you.” 

“I wasn’t the person you know. Because I was with someone else.” 

Will rubbed his hands down his thighs and stared at the carpet. “I don’t know what you expect to get out of this.” 

“What would you want to get out of it, if you could? If you disregarded the standards of acceptable behavior and chose to be honest about your desires instead? It is as important to know what we want to do as it is to know what we should do. Otherwise, the two may coincide without our notice, and we miss the opportunities that change our lives.” 

Will closed his eyes. He felt he should be used to Hannibal’s efforts to excavate the darkest areas of his mind by now, but this wasn’t something he’d picked up from the dirt and gore of a crime scene. 

This was all his, an ugly little lump of feeling that had stuck in his throat and wouldn’t be swallowed down or coughed up. He almost hadn’t come tonight, and now he wished he hadn’t. A few more days and he might’ve gotten past it. Would’ve forced himself to get past it. “I don’t think you want to know,” he said. 

“I can’t think of anything I want to know more.” 

Will looked up at him, caught by the fervor in his voice, though his face was calm. He swallowed. Hannibal waited. Will weighed his next words as if he were stepping out onto unstable ice. “What if I said I didn’t want you to see him anymore?”

“Is that all you want?”

“What if I said I don’t want him to touch you, I don’t want him to look at you, or think about you, or eat at your table?”

“Continue.”

Wind whistled around the eaves of the building. Cold outside, warm within. Sometimes Will felt the opposite was true of him. Something warm and human on the outside that only just managed to smother the darkness at his core. This was one of those times. 

“I want you to hurt him,” Will said softly. “To drive him away. So he’ll know you’re not— You’re not for him.” 

Hannibal only smiled faintly and rose. He took his cell phone from a drawer in the desk. 

“What are you—”

“Do you want it on speaker phone?” Hannibal said. 

Will gaped a second and then nodded, silent. Hannibal dialed.

“Hello?” 

“Hello, Morgan.” 

“Hannibal! I was going to call you. I’ve got tickets for—” 

“Please, it will be easier if you let me talk. I believe it’s best to be honest in my interactions with others, so I feel I should tell you that I don’t wish to see you anymore.” 

Silence. “But— I thought— Why? I don’t understand.” 

“You try too hard, Morgan. You try to present yourself as intelligent and cultured, and the dishonesty of it has become wearing. I’ve tried to excuse your behavior in certain situations as ignorance, but I think you’d be better off with someone on your own level, socially and intellectually.” 

A longer silence. Will stared at Hannibal, eyes so wide he felt as if he might strain something. 

“If that’s how you feel,” Morgan said faintly. 

“It is,” Hannibal said, affecting boredom. “Goodbye, Morgan. I wish you well.” 

He hung up and looked to Will, hands spread out. 

“Oh, my God,” Will said. “You really just…did that.” 

“You asked me to.” 

“I didn’t think you would. Why would you?” 

“Because you are important to me, and he is not.” 

“So you hurt him for me.” 

Hannibal nodded once. “As you heard.” 

“What else would you do?” 

He and Hannibal looked at each other. Will wished he could take the question back and was glad he couldn’t. 

“What would you like?” Hannibal said. 

“Nothing. I wasn’t— Nothing.” 

“There must be something. Or do you only want me so that no one else can have me?” 

“What if I said yes?” 

Hannibal leaned against the edge of his desk. He was quiet, eyes directed momentarily upward as he considered. “All right,” he said. 

“What?” 

“You can have me. Exclusively. Is that what you want?” 

“I— Just like that?” 

“Yes.” 

“For how long?” 

“I see no reason to place a time limit on it.”

“I just get you. Exclusively. Forever.” 

“You already have me, Will. As I think you must be aware that I already have you. This is merely a discussion of terminology and a refining of intent.” 

Will got up and went to him. “I don’t want you to see anyone else. Romantically. Sexually.”

“Platonically?” 

“I’m not going to tell you you can’t see your friends.” 

“No matter how much you’d like to.” 

“This is bad enough as it is.” Will looked away. “I’m not like this. I was never like this.”

“Previous lovers?” 

“I didn’t care. I’d barely have cared if they slept with someone else. They all just—” He shook his head. “Slid away.” 

Hannibal hooked a hand around the back of his neck, and Will looked up at him, startled. 

“As long as you hold me to this, I expect the same of you. No one else. Only me.” 

Will nodded quickly. “Of course. I—” He looked at Hannibal’s mouth. “No one else.” 

“Good.”


	2. Chapter 2

Will continued in the solitary groove of his life. Hannibal continued in his own, now somewhat more solitary. Not that Will would know if it weren’t. Hannibal could be anywhere, with anyone, despite his promise. It ate at Will, and he hated Hannibal a little bit for planting this seed, for suggesting he had any right to care. 

Middle of the night wakings, tangled in sheets and sweat and other people’s nightmares, now ended with unshakeable images of Hannibal’s naked body twisted up with another. He closed his eyes and saw Hannibal’s hands on someone else’s skin, a tight grip on yielding flesh. He could almost hear the sounds they would make together. 

Hannibal had said he wouldn’t, but he _could_. The uncertainty grew until it filled Will’s mind, and this wasn’t a normal way to feel about his therapist or his friend, wasn’t anything like acceptable. He knew that, but the knowledge wasn’t enough. 

He called Hannibal at home at three in the morning. The phone rang and rang, and he watched his anger grow inside him as if from a great distance. Watching the sink back up or a forest fire on the news in another state. 

“Hello?” Hannibal finally answered, sleepy-soft, the slight static of his skin brushing against the phone’s mic. 

“You’re home.” 

“Will.” Hannibal made his name into a sigh, and it was contentment, happiness, comfort. Will could almost see him laying his head back down on the pillow, curled around Will’s voice and holding it close. “Where else would I be?” 

“I don’t know. I didn’t know.” 

“Were you worried?” 

“I couldn’t think about anything else.” 

“Mm. Would you sleep better here? Where you can keep an eye on me?” 

He would. He knew he would, and it made him feel sick and more than a little excited to have Hannibal offer him this. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he said. “You shouldn’t encourage this.”

“Perhaps my notions of romance are as skewed as yours seem to be.” 

“This isn’t a romance.”

“It is for me.”

“We haven’t— We haven’t done anything at all. We’ve barely touched.” 

“That doesn’t matter.” Hannibal stifled a yawn, and Will heard the shift of the sheets across his body. “I’m yours. You said so. That’s enough.”

Will swallowed. “Can I come over?” 

“Yes.” 

Will hung up without saying goodbye. He put out fresh water and food for the dogs, packed a change of clothes, and drove to Baltimore. Hannibal met him at the door. They climbed the stairs without a word. 

They lay on their sides, facing each other, each on his own pillow. Hannibal in navy blue pajamas, Will in his ragged t-shirt and boxers. Hannibal’s foot touched his shin, and Will wriggled closer. 

“How long are you going to let this go on?” he asked. 

“For as long as we both shall live,” Hannibal murmured. His eyes were half closed, his whole face soft. When Will laid a hand on his cheek, he turned toward it, and his lips grazed Will’s wrist. 

“I’m straight. I thought I was," Will said. "Maybe that’s a stupid thing to say at this point.” 

“You can wish to possess me without desiring me sexually.” 

Will closed his eyes. “Don’t say that like it’s okay. It’s not okay.” 

“I think that should be for me to decide, don’t you? Other people might find it off putting. Even frightening. I don’t.” 

“Why not?” 

“If I am to ransom my heart, let it be for for the darker reaches of your soul. Let it be for everything you struggle against. Light is fleeting, but our monsters never truly leave us.”

“You can’t give me your heart. It’s not safe. I’m not safe.” 

Hannibal took his wrist and brought Will’s hand to his chest. His eyes were closing. “Wrap me in your shadows,” he murmured. “I can think of no safer place to be.” 

*

Hannibal had nightmares, too. They lacked the clockwork regularity of Will’s, and they weren’t as showy, but twice over next few weeks, Will woke to find Hannibal’s body rigid, his face a vacant skull with skin pulled tight and eyes flicking to follow the pendulum inside him. The first time, Will only watched, worried that waking him might be worse than letting him sleep through it and forget. The second time, Hannibal made a sound like a child in pain, and Will couldn’t bear it. 

He shook Hannibal’s shoulder and called his name. Hannibal woke with panic in his eyes and hands grasping at Will’s t-shirt. 

“It’s okay,” Will said, though he knew intimately how useless the words were. “It’s okay. It was just a dream.” 

“It wasn’t.”

Will paused. "Memories?"

Hannibal nodded. He passed a hand over his face. Will expected him to pull away, but he only pressed closer. One leg slid between Will's, one arm over his waist. 

“Do you want to tell me?” Will asked.

Hannibal shook his head. “Tell me something.”

“What?”

“Something worse.” 

"Worse than what you remember?"

"Yes."

Will told him about the killer in New Orleans who impaled his victims on stakes. One or two had pulled themselves off and made it to the phone. None had survived until the paramedics arrived. The majority had died of dehydration or heart attack or a build-up of fluid in the lungs. It was still one of the worst cases Will could remember. 

Hannibal fell asleep with his head on Will’s chest, soothed by something darker than his own memories. 

Hannibal gave Will a key to his house the next morning. He already had one to Will’s. He’d never given it back after feeding Will’s dogs while he was away, and Will hadn’t asked for it. 

*

They slept together most nights, usually at Hannibal’s, but sometimes at Will’s. Will got used to seeing him sleepy and half-dressed, got used to the way he took over Will’s kitchen and cleaned his pans and stove at five in the morning until they shone. He wouldn’t speak, but he would pull Will close and breathe in against the back of his neck and hold him in the morning stillness. 

Will got used to the feel of his breath and his bare skin and the brush of his lips. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been touched so much. Not his last relationship, not the one before. Definitely not as a child. When they were alone, Hannibal’s hands were on him more often than not. 

They were on him this morning. A cold rain pounded the windows, and Hannibal cooked eggs with one arm wrapped around Will’s waist. Will slumped against his side, exhausted from his dreams. He dropped his head to Hannibal’s shoulder. 

“D’you have patients today?” 

Hannibal paused and then slid the spatula once more around the pan. “One,” he said. “I don’t typically see patients on Sundays, but he was insistent.” 

“You should’ve told him to fuck off,” Will mumbled. He wanted Hannibal here, with him, undressed and unshaven and smelling like a normal human being, all traces of his fancy aftershave worn away. 

“Shall I?”

“What, now?”

“Yes."

"You can't just cancel.”

"Get me my phone.” 

Will lifted his head to stare at him and then crossed the room to the chair where Hannibal had hung up his jacket the night before. He took the phone from his pocket and walked back to Hannibal in the kitchen. Hannibal scrolled through his contacts, selected one, and dialed. He made his excuses, citing a minor emergency with another patient, disconnected the call, and handed the phone back to Will.

"You're crazy," Will said. 

“Perhaps. Intensity of emotion can lead one to do things that are not in one's normal character. That is a truth with which I believe you are familiar."

“Is that what you feel for me? Intensity of emotion?”

“There is another word for it.” 

“Don't,” Will said.

"Very well.” 

Hannibal served them breakfast, and they ate quietly at Will’s kitchen table. 

“Why do you do these things for me?" Will asked. 

“Because you should have the things you desire. If I am what you desire, how can I do otherwise?”

Will looked down at his food. "What else would you do?”

“You asked me that once before. I think you were afraid of the answer. Are you still afraid?"

“Yes." He took a bite and set his fork down. He could see his own reflection split into pieces by the tines. “Maybe I should ask what you wouldn't do.”

"I could only respond on a case by case basis. Is there something you want?”

Will's hand clenched around his mug. "Is there something _you_ want? What are you getting out of this?”

“To be so desired is a heady drug. It is enough. You deny me very little."

"But I do deny you.”

Hannibal leaned back in his chair. He held his glass of orange juice to his lips and let it rest against his mouth as if he were savoring the scent of a fine wine. “The lack of carnality in our relationship doesn't trouble me.”

“But you would like that. If we were…physical.”

“We are physical." He stood to clear the table and laid a hand on the back of Will’s neck. “You never object to the way I touch you. I don't think you would object if I pushed for more.”

He ran his hand over Will's shoulder and down his chest, under the t-shirt, over his heart. His hands were so familiar now that Will relaxed into the touch. He leaned his head back against Hannibal's hip. 

"Sometimes I want you to," he said. "I think about you in the shower when I'm jerking off in the morning. I wonder what it would be like.”

“Tell me what you think about.” 

"I think about fucking you. I think about you under me.”

“I'd let you."

Will closed his eyes. “Is there such a thing as too much honesty?"

"Not between us. Is there something else you wish to tell me?” 

“Sometimes I think about hurting you. Because I know you’d let me. Wouldn’t you?"

"Yes."

Will swallowed. He could feel his cock hardening. “You have to draw a line somewhere, Hannibal.”

"Why should I? I want nothing between us. No lines, no restrictions, no restraint."


	3. Chapter 3

The Chesapeake Ripper took a new victim. The man lay on his own bed in his best suit. The top of his skull was gone, and the brain was missing. So were his eyes. He held his heart cupped in his joined hands. 

"Who was he?" Will asked. 

"Bernard Ross. Philanthropist and humanitarian. He inherited money from both sides of the family. His latest cause was arts programs for underprivileged children,” Jack said.

Will paced around the body. The symbolism seemed too obvious for once. "Love is blind. Makes you crazy. Brainless, so to speak. His heart is in his hands.”

“The victim was in love?" Jack said. 

“The victim is a love letter. Look who the Ripper picked. Look at what kind of heart he chose to offer.”

“The guy was rich," Zeller said. “He may have given away a lot of money, but he was probably still an asshole.”

“But pure of heart, theoretically at least. A suitable gift.”

“Are you saying the Ripper's in love?" Beverly asked. 

“He thinks he is anyway. Or he wants someone else to think he is. Either way, there's someone he wants to impress."

"Who?" Jack asked. 

Will shrugged. “His crime scenes are about him. I couldn't even tell you if it’s a man or a woman.”

And that was that, until the autopsy, when Zeller pulled a small, china dog out of Bernard Ross's heart. 

"It's mine," Will said into the sudden silence. He felt as if he weren't getting enough air. His mouth shaped the words, but he could put no force behind them. "I'm missing one. It's been gone for about a week. He's been in my house.”

“This was intended for you?” Jack said. “The love letter?”

“I don’t know,” Will said, but it was a lie. 

Something began to gather at the back of his mind, like thunder clouds piled deep in preparation for a summer storm. 

*

The next week, Will showed up for his appointment with Hannibal feeling sick and hot and with the taste of slaughter hovering at the back of his throat. 

“There has been another?" Hannibal asked.

Will nodded as he sank into a chair. "They didn't think it was him at first. He left the body whole this time. No organs taken.”

"How did the victim die?” 

"He was drowned in honey.”

“Surrounded by sweetness.”

“And preserved. Given immortality.” He got up to walk the length of the room. He looked out the window into the bare branches of the tree that rose up beside it. 

"You still believe he is courting you?"

Will nodded once.

“How do they make you feel, his gifts?”

"Concerned. Disgusted.”

"And what else?"

Will said nothing.

Hannibal crossed the room to stand by his side. He stroked a hand down Will's back and let it rest on his hip, pulling him closer. Will leaned into him. He breathed into the curve of Hannibal's neck. 

“It's exciting,” Will said, words intentionally muffled by Hannibal's skin. "I hate it. I do. But I feel close to him. He wants so much to be understood, and he didn't think that was possible. And now he knows it is.” 

"Because of you.”

“Yes.”

“Is he right?” Hannibal asked. “Empathy and understanding are not always the same thing.” 

"I want to," Will admitted. 

Hannibal tightened his grip and shifted to stand behind Will. He wrapped his arms around Will's waist. "You feel some fascination for him.” 

"I always have. Sometimes I feel like he's my shadow. My opposite. A negative image of what I do."

"And perhaps some sense of recognition. He has seen you as you see him.”

"I don't need him to see me.” 

“The acknowledgment of our peers can be more powerful than we expect. I'm not surprised you find the idea attractive.” 

Hannibal slid his hand down over Will's stomach and between his legs to cup his cock. Will shuddered, but didn’t stop him. He pressed into the touch. It felt inevitable, like they’d always been meant to end up here. 

"What would you say to him if he were here?" Hannibal asked.

Will closed his eyes. He said nothing. Hannibal unbuckled his belt, opened his jeans and pushed a hand down to tease the shaft of his cock with light fingers. 

"Do you find it romantic?" Hannibal asked him. 

Will shook his head, but not in response to the question. He rocked his hips forward. "Touch me. Get me off.”

Hannibal pushed his pants down to his thighs and freed his cock from his underwear. He started stroking him, and Will leaned back against his chest, head on his shoulder. 

"Do you think it's romantic?" Will asked. "You're the one with the skewed notions of romance.”

“He is going to extremes for you. Yes, I suppose I do see some romance in that. The grand gesture.”

He moved his hand steadily. Fluid leaked from the head of Will’s cock, and his breathing grew harsh. "You go to extremes for me.” 

“Murder is a long way beyond cancelled appointments.”

Something, some note of tension in Hannibal's voice made Will want to push harder. “So you're saying he'd go farther for me than you would?” 

Hannibal’s grip around his waist tightened. His fingers dug hard into Will’s hip. He stroked Will’s cock harder, faster, until Will was holding onto his arm and gasping with building sensation. He came silently into Hannibal’s hand and a quickly produced handkerchief. 

Will looked down at the ruined silk as Hannibal tucked him away and zipped up his jeans. He turned slowly to face him. He could see the shadow of stubble along Hannibal's jaw, the tight line of his mouth. "Are you jealous of the Chesapeake Ripper?" Will asked.

“He is a madman.” 

"You wanted nothing between us. No lines, no restrictions.” He looked up and met Hannibal's eyes. “Would you kill for me, Hannibal?” 

He could see the struggle as clearly as if Hannibal's skull were made of glass and every thought that formed burst like fireworks across the surface of his brain. He had never seemed so transparent. Hannibal’s mouth opened once and closed, and Will knew. He couldn’t even pretend it was a surprise. 

"You would," he said. "You have.” 

Hannibal’s tongue passed quickly over his lips. "You have undone me. From the first moment I met you.” 

“You were in a unique position. To change me. To bend me the way you wanted me to go. Why didn't you?” 

"I considered it. This is the path I have chosen instead. I gave you my devotion and my heart. I wanted to see what you would do with them."

"What do you want me to do with them?”

"Whatever you like. They are your possessions. One’s watch does not dictate how one fills the hours of one's days. That is for you to say.”

“Or you hope that the power you're giving me will lead me down the path you want me to follow more easily than manipulation would.” 

"Is that what's happening?”

Will turned away. "The more time I spend with you, the less I feel like myself. You make me want things I'd rather not want.”

"Tell me to stop. Direct me as you wish.”

"I need to think. I'm going home. Don't call me.”

“Yes, Will. Just as you like.” 

*

Will spent the next week alone. He taught his classes. There were no calls from Jack, no new Chesapeake Ripper killings. He slept poorly without Hannibal beside him. 

He called Hannibal, finally, after midnight on Sunday, no more decided than he had been a week ago. 

“Come over," he said. 

Hannibal asked him nothing, just agreed, and an hour later he knocked on Will’s door. They sat down on the edge of the bed. 

“Who was the next one?" Will asked. "Did you have someone picked out?”

“Yes. Another killer. I thought you would appreciate that. It's someone you've been looking for.”

“Who?”

“He murdered two families in Virginia and posed them as participants in the Last Supper. You remember?"

Will nodded once, slowly. “What did you intend to do with him?”

"Feed him his own internal organs. Or at least those he could spare temporarily. It seemed appropriate.” 

"Appropriate.” 

"You don't think so?”

Will remembered the bearded father sitting in the middle, posed as Jesus, his four-year-old son sitting to his right, their hands joined on the table, not quite dead when the killer left them. Maybe it did seem appropriate.

"Show me," Will said. 

Hannibal nodded. "A few days to prepare––”

“Now. Tonight.”

Hannibal acquiesced silently and gestured toward the door. 

*

Darkness filled the empty land around the man's house. No streetlights. Like Will, he lived too far out in the country.

"No dogs?" Will asked as they rolled to a silent stop at the end of the driveway. 

"No dogs. No neighbors close enough to hear him. No other pets or likely visitors." Hannibal paused. "There is always the risk that he will have someone staying the night. Normally, I would have had the house under observation earlier in the evening. Even so, there is always a risk." 

"I understand." 

Hannibal slid his hands around the circle of the steering wheel and rested them on his thighs. "Do you understand what you're asking me to do?"  

Will rubbed at his eyes. They stung from the late hour and the lack of sleep and the dry air inside the car. "I do. And I don't. I don't want you to hide from me anymore." 

"Once I begin, I will finish. This cannot be left incomplete." 

"Even if I tell you to stop?" 

"Even then. Once he sees us, he cannot be left alive. I can speed his death if you prefer, but I will not sacrifice my freedom. Or yours.”

“So that’s your line in the sand. What happened to anything I want? What happened to no restrictions?”

Hannibal looked toward the house, a faint line creasing his forehead. “You must think me truly mad.” 

“You are truly mad. I know you’re self-aware enough to see that.” 

Hannibal closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. “Very well. No lines. No restrictions. Everything just as you choose.” 

They sat together quietly, no moon, breath starting to fog the corners of the windows. 

“What if I told you to call Jack and turn yourself in?” Will asked. 

“Is that what you want?” 

“What if?”

Hannibal kept his eyes closed. His face remained immobile, its angles barely visible in the dim light. “I don’t wish to go to prison,” he said, at last. 

“What if I wanted you there? What if that’s where this path you’ve chosen leads?”

A longer silence. Will reached over and wrapped his hand around Hannibal’s wrist. Hannibal’s fingers dug into the leather seat. 

“I will,” he said. “If that’s what you wish. Eventually, one must surrender to fate, and I believe you are mine.”

Will felt the same. By one path or another, they would always have ended here. He looked toward the house. One light flicked on in the upstairs window. Hannibal turned his head to watch it. A minute or two passed. The light went out again. 

"Home," Will said. "Take us home."

"To your house?" Hannibal asked.

"Yes. Come home with me. Stay with me."

"For as long as you wish."

"Sell your house." Will glanced at him. He could see only Hannibal's profile, no hint of his expression. "Stay with me."

"Gladly," Hannibal said.

"You're crazy," Will told him as they pulled back out onto the road.

"Perhaps. But single-minded focus is a trait that belongs to as many geniuses as mad men. It is often the only prerequisite for acquiring that which one desires more than anything else."

"Do you desire me more than anything else?"

"I do."


	4. Chapter 4

They reached Will's house near dawn. The dogs stirred and grumbled, but didn't come to meet them at the door. Will looked at Hannibal's face in the gray, early light.

"You fed them to me, didn't you?"

"Often, and not only to you."

"What do you want from me, Hannibal?"

"I want you to make me into the object of your desire."

"Do you want me to change you? Do you want to change?"

"I want to give myself over to you. Completely. If you would change me, then I will change."

"I find that very difficult to believe."

"Why? Does it sound like something a madman would say?"

"It sounds dangerous."

"I am dangerous. As are you. In combination, we could be terrifying."

"You think I’ll temper your urges toward destruction? What if I don't? What if I send you out to kill on my behalf? I could pick your targets. You would be my weapon."

"You could. I would not object. Perhaps someday. Perhaps you will find someone to hate, and I will be allowed to remove them for you."

Will walked past him into the kitchen to splash cold water on his face. It didn't steady him as much as he’d hoped. "It's too much," he said. "Too much responsibility."

"You wouldn't leave a stray dog by the side of the road, but you would leave me alone in the trap of my mind?"

"You're not trapped. You've made your own choices. Your own path. You like what you've become."

"So do you."

They looked at each other. Water rolled down the back of Will's neck and sent a shiver through him. Hannibal's gaze offered madness and devotion in equal measure, both dark, both fathomless. Will felt as if he might plunge into that well and never touch bottom. He had always been attracted to the dark, the backwards moth straining away from the flame.

"Come here," he said.

Hannibal came to him and let Will undress him. Will undid his buttons one by one. He tossed Hannibal's suit jacket to the floor, his shirt and waistcoat on top. He kicked them aside and Hannibal didn't even spare a glance in their direction. Will kept going until Hannibal stood naked in front of him. His cock was hard and his face was solemn.

"What are you thinking of, Will?" Hannibal asked him.

"I'm thinking that I keep most of my strays in the crate for the first night."

Hannibal glanced toward it where it stood against the wall. "I don't think I would fit."

"Is it just curiosity? Do you really want me to change you?"

"I recognize that one of us must change. Perhaps, for once, I wish it to be me. It is partly curiosity. Partly, perhaps, the subtle pull toward annihilation that we all feel on some level."

"I don't want to change you.”

"But I am a monster."

"It would take someone monstrous to want me the way you do."

Hannibal took his hips and drew him close. Will let his hands come up to rest on Hannibal's shoulders. Hannibal kissed him, a soft parting of the lips, a slide of tongues. Hannibal's breath inside his mouth, inside his body, filling him up. Will touched his skin, the broad stretch of his back, coiled muscles a threat just under the surface. Every inch of him gave off a wild sort of heat. Nothing so tame as a furnace, rather the perennial danger of lightning strike and forest fire.

"I don't care about the people you killed," Will said, and the relief of speaking that truth out loud made him tremble and filled him up with a vibrating energy. He pressed his mouth hard against Hannibal's and pushed him back towards the bed.

They fell onto it together. Will pulled at his own shirt and yanked it off over his head. It felt to the floor somewhere beyond the scope of his knowledge, which had narrowed to Hannibal's body. Naked and vulnerable underneath him. His.

"If you touch anyone else, I'll kill you," he said.

Hannibal only nodded once, dark eyes steady, accepting. Willing to take whatever Will wanted to give him. His acceptance brought forth an unexpected tenderness in Will's heart. Will bent low over him, and his kisses were gentle. He shifted enough to strip out of the rest of his clothes. He pressed his palms flat to Hannibal's chest, kissed his neck, felt Hannibal's thighs part for him.

"What do you want?" Will asked him.

"I want to be remade."

"Do you want me to fuck you?"

Hannibal looked up at him with a faint smile. "Such a gauche question. I want so much more than that. And so do you."

Will brushed Hannibal's hair back from his forehead and pressed a kiss between his eyes. "I know what to do with your mind. Even with your mouth. I don't know what to do with your body."

"And my soul?"

"Do you still have one?"

"I wouldn't sell it. What could the Devil give me that I don't already have?"

"Sounds to me like you're trading it for a life in the Virginia sticks with seven dogs and a guy who sleeps in his living room."

"Is it my soul that makes me a killer then?"

"You are who you are. If the word means anything, then it means that."

"Do you really mean for me to come and live with you here?"

"You don't look unhappy about it."

"I'm not."

"I want you with me. It doesn't have to be here, but I'm not moving into the city."

"It should be here. I am not as impressionable as you are, but when I feel you all around me, I cannot help but respond. The flood tide of your life swallows me up."

Desire sparked in Will's stomach. He pulled at Hannibal's shoulder. "Turn over."

Hannibal turned and lay on his stomach, legs spread, head pillowed on his crossed arms. Will knelt between his legs. He kissed Hannibal's back and saw the loose muscles there, Hannibal's utter relaxation, waiting for whatever Will chose to do to him or for him.

Will parted Hannibal's cheeks and licked between them. He heard Hannibal's faint grunt and felt his thighs flex. Soft flesh in each hand, Hannibal's body and secrets spread open for him. His own cock stirred, and he ground his hips down against the sheet. He licked harder, thrusting his tongue against Hannibal's tight hole again and again. 

It grew looser and hotter under his attention. Spit slicked the skin around it and his chin and his lips. Hannibal's breath grew ragged.Will didn't want to stop. He wanted Hannibal ruined and gasping and shattered. 

He thrust in with the tip of his tongue. He scratched his nails down the soft skin of Hannibal's inner thighs. He mouthed Hannibal's balls and licked up between his cheeks until his jaw ached, until the skin there was sodden, until they might be one person, so attuned was he to the faint tremor in Hannibal's muscles, the sheen of sweat on his sides. 

"Will," Hannibal said, and his voice was low and raw.

Will only licked at him harder, thrust with slippery, teasing tongue until he felt Hannibal's hips begin to work against the sheets. He pulled back and rearranged him until he was up on his knees. His cock strained against the empty air. Will bent back to his task. 

Hannibal laid his chest and cheek down against the mattress in supplication. He inched his knees further apart. He spoke Will's name with pleading reverence. He shuddered, and his breath came hard and fast. One hand twisted in the sheets and pulled until the cloth was strained almost past endurance, like Hannibal himself.

Will turned him onto his back and looked down at him: his flushed cheeks and fevered eyes, his parted lips and hair in disarray. Will bent to kiss him. Hannibal spoke his name again and again, pressed it into his own mouth and the skin of his neck and chest. Their hips worked together, cocks slippery-wet and sliding.

Hannibal hooked one leg over the back of Will's thigh and thrust up against him. It brought them closer together, more skin contact, the scent of Hannibal all around him, the warmth of his body. Will reached down between them and pushed a finger against Hannibal's wet opening. He slid in slowly, and Hannibal arched against him with a low, rough sound that might almost have been pain.

Will kissed him again, harder, teeth on his bottom lip. "All right?" he asked.

Hannibal dug his nails into Will's shoulders and pulled him that much closer. He rocked himself onto Will's finger in short, sharp thrusts. His body squeezed tight, and he was panting, muscles tensed.

"Close?" Will asked. "Do you want more?" 

Hannibal shook his head and thrust himself harder on to Will's finger at the same time. A sharp rock of his hips, once, twice, and then he was coming, hot and wet between their bodies. The friction as they moved rubbed it into their skin. His nails left bloody scratches across Will's shoulder blades.

Something in his abandoned ecstasy took Will by the neck with a hard grip of lust. He grabbed at Hannibal and turned him onto his stomach again, shoved his legs wide, and scrabbled in the drawer of his bedside table. Lube on his fingers, on his cock, and then he was inside.

Hannibal groaned and clutched the pillow, wanton as Will took him. His hips hitched back to meet each movement. He grasped the sheets and pounded one fist against the mattress. When Will glanced back over his shoulder, he saw Hannibal's bare feet flexed, toes curled tight. His face was turned to one side, eyes shut, lashes a thin dark line over pink cheeks, teeth sunk hard into his lower lip.

Will wanted to draw it out, but the restless movements of Hannibal's desire made it impossible. He thrust and thrust and spent himself with a shudder. He lay with his cheek to Hannibal's back, and their bodies stuck together with semen and sweat. The simplicity of the moment folded itself around them. Will kissed the outlines of Hannibal's bones.

When he heaved himself off at last to lie on his back and let the air cool him, Hannibal stayed as he was, or curled even tighter around the pillow he held. Will stroked a hand down his side.

"All right?" he asked, remembering that he hadn't gotten an answer the first time.

Hannibal turned his head and met Will's gaze. Will didn't turn away, but studied him, took in the raw quality of his expression, so open, almost frightened. He reached out and gathered Hannibal close until their breath meshed and Hannibal's pulse beat against his skin.

"I didn't know it would be like this," Hannibal said.

"Like what?"

"Like killing. Like dying."

"Do you know what that feels like, too?"

"I do now," Hannibal said. 

*

Hannibal sold his house in Baltimore. He brought surprisingly little with him when he came to live with Will. His mattress, which was fair enough. The samurai armor from his bedroom. A few pieces of art, many of his books, clothes, though not all of them. Not as many as Will had expected. He did bring most of the contents of his kitchen: knives and pots and pans, serving dishes and spoons and nearly all of his china and glassware.

"This isn't going to fit," Will said.

"It will fit when we get rid of yours," Hannibal replied calmly.

Except for one knife and a couple of cast iron pans, Will let him do it. He let Hannibal move his bed into another room, let him make it into a real bedroom, curtains, rug, dresser, the armor lurking in one corner. He let Hannibal open up the rooms on the second floor that Will seldom entered and never used. He felt curiously exposed, as if Hannibal were looking at parts of his soul instead of parts of his house.

They slept together every night.

Hannibal cooked for him, often drove him to work in the morning, picked him up afterward and took him home. The dogs greeted them both. Within a month, Hannibal started cooking for them as well.

"The smell of the dog food is unbearable," he said.

It took some time, but news of their new living arrangements made its way to Quantico. Alana was astonished, but supportive. Jack's only comment was that Will might as well bring Hannibal along to the next Ripper scene if he were free. "Two heads are better than one."

The Ripper stopped short of his sounder of three. Will led Jack instead to the killer whose life he had spared. The man watched them come from his front lawn and knelt in prayer as they put the cuffs on him.  

*

Will and Hannibal sat together in front of the fire. The space heater had been retired to a closet, and the dog beds had been arranged in a smooth semi-circle. Hannibal was reading on his tablet, a glass of wine balanced on the arm of his chair. Will watched him until he looked up.

"What is it?" Hannibal asked.

"Are you ever surprised by how well our lives fit together?"

"We have made every effort to ease the fit. I don't think it's that surprising, no."

"Will it always be this easy?

“I imagine we will have the same mundane difficulties that most couples do. Perhaps we will weather them more effectively for knowing that they are trivial compared to the obstacles we have already overcome, but we will have them."

"Mundane," Will said. "Whose turn is it to do the laundry, who's cleaning up the dog shit on the floor? That kind of thing?"

"That kind of thing."

"I thought you'd be above all that. I thought the concept of it would disgust you."

"To an extent, it does."

"But not enough to back out of this."

"I would wade through hellfire for you, Will. Perhaps I shall, someday, when we have passed from this world and worms and maggots consume our remains. Until then, I will have what I can of you, whether that is blood and the surety of damnation or petty arguments about housework."

He went back to his reading. Will smiled to himself and watched the fire. He closed his eyes and let himself drift. Hannibal would wake him when it was time to go to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can check out my [original writing here](http://www.eleanorkos.com/) if you're interested.
> 
> [emungere.tumblr.com](http://emungere.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Moth and the Dark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3370265) by [dodificus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodificus/pseuds/dodificus)




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